A01=Thomas A. Krainz
American History
American West
American West history
Arizona history
Author_Thomas A. Krainz
Category=JBFG
Category=JBFH
Category=NHB
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
displaced people
economic migrants
El Paso history
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forced migration studies
History
history of welfare
Idaho history
Montana history
Mormon history
Northern California history
Oregon history
Progressive Era history
Progressive Era refugees
public policy
refugee studies
Social Science
Social Welfare Programs
Texas history
Washington history
welfare policies
welfare policy
welfare practices
welfare state
welfare strategies
welfare studies
Western History
Yaqui Indians
Product details
- ISBN 9781496239525
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2025
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Local communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries commonly addressed the needs of refugees, defined broadly during the Progressive Era to include internally displaced people and economic migrants. These communities’ efforts to assist people in need created a type of informal pop-up welfare system of short-term assistance that provided for hundreds, and often thousands of refugees.
In A Great Many Refugees Thomas A. Krainz examines how communities in the American West cared for refugees. The ten case studies include a range of different causes that forced people to flee, including revolution, war, genocide, environmental disaster, and economic recession. Communities tapped into their local resources to provide for refugees, and this informal welfare proved-in the short term-remarkably efficient, effective, and, at times, flexible and innovative. However, local communities simply could not sustain their widespread relief efforts for long and providing meaningful and comprehensive long-term aid proved a near-universal failure.
Krainz’s examination of how Progressive Era residents cared for refugees uncovers a significant segment of welfare policies and practices that have remained largely obscured. These examples of informal, short-term assistance efforts profoundly challenge our standard depiction of local Progressive Era welfare practices as anemic and unresponsive to those in crisis.
In A Great Many Refugees Thomas A. Krainz examines how communities in the American West cared for refugees. The ten case studies include a range of different causes that forced people to flee, including revolution, war, genocide, environmental disaster, and economic recession. Communities tapped into their local resources to provide for refugees, and this informal welfare proved-in the short term-remarkably efficient, effective, and, at times, flexible and innovative. However, local communities simply could not sustain their widespread relief efforts for long and providing meaningful and comprehensive long-term aid proved a near-universal failure.
Krainz’s examination of how Progressive Era residents cared for refugees uncovers a significant segment of welfare policies and practices that have remained largely obscured. These examples of informal, short-term assistance efforts profoundly challenge our standard depiction of local Progressive Era welfare practices as anemic and unresponsive to those in crisis.
Thomas A. Krainz is an associate professor of history at DePaul University. He is the author of Delivering Aid: Implementing Progressive Era Welfare in the American West.
